Microsoft is already manufacturing pallets full of Xbox One consoles

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Yesterday Microsoft dropped two big pieces of news regarding the Xbox One. The first was they they had managed to increase the console’s CPU clock speed by 150MHz, taking it to 1.75GHz. The second was the launch date, which occurs exactly eight years after the Xbox 360 shipped on November 22. It’s also clear now those decisions were made a while ago.

Anyone concerned about the amount of stock Microsoft can produce in time for the launch probably shouldn’t be. That’s because Microsoft is already manufacturing the final units and filling warehouses with pallets full of them.

Confirmation of that comes via Major Nelson, who shared the images you see above and below. I’d guess each of those smaller boxes contains three Xbox One retail boxes, and therefore each pallet is going to have 81 consoles stacked on it.

With 11 weeks still to go until the Xbox One launches, I doubt any of these pallets will actually be shipped for some time yet. It won’t be until we reach November that they get loaded and sent to actual retail stores. If they shipped now, chances are a few of them would get lost before November, and Microsoft wants to avoid that at all costs.

Microsoft also needs to hit the ground running due to the PS4 launching a week earlier. The Xbox One is a more expensive machine and will be available later, which does make things more difficult for the company. Any type of stock shortages in the run up to Christmas would be a disaster, so it’s understandable they are ramping up production now.